So, what happens if you try to contribute back to the community, specifically the PEAR project, and you get shot down for a proposal - even a simple one? Travis Swicegoodfound out:

Yesterday I proposed my first PEAR package. I've helped a few friends with packages of their own, but never got around to getting a developer account and taking the lead on a package. After hearing about the recent changes in store and the umpteenth "you should propose that" from Josh, I decided to propose one of the smaller "packages" I've used in some of my code: PHP_Callback. I say packages with quotation marks because it's really just one, simple file.

The problem wasn't in the proposal, but in the immediate responses he received for it - "it's useless", "this isn't the correct way to do this" and "it's too easy to implement on its own, it doesn't need to be in the library".

One most new-to-PHP programmers could have put together in an afternoon. I can only imagine how quickly a new developer would have unsubscribed from pear-dev and pulled his proposal if his first foray into contributing to the community had been met so quickly with such unconstructive criticism.